Five top police officers arrested in Tijuana

TIJUANA  Tijuana Mayor Jorge Ramos’ administration has been dealt a severe blow with the detention of five top police officers accused of collaborating with a violent drug gang believed responsible for the deaths of numerous municipal officers.

Ramon Angel Soto Corral, 43, one of three shift commanders in the 2,100-officer Tijuana Police Department, was among five high-ranking officers detained Monday by Mexican federal forces in Tijuana. The arrests were announced Tuesday in Mexico City by the federal Public Safety Secretariat.

Also taken into custody were four sector supervisors, including Macario Arturo Ramirez Enriquez, 50, Jose Enrique Ramirez Zambrano, 34, Juan Carlos Cruz Espinosa, 49, and Francisco Ortega Zamora, 49. The latter two are military captains on leave, hired as part of a major anti-corruption campaign spearheaded by Tijuana’s secretary of public safety, Lt. Col. Julian Leyzaola Perez.

The officers were among 11 men detained Monday by federal forces inside a safe house in Tijuana allegedly being run by a criminal group with ties to the powerful Sinaloa cartel, according to a news release by the federal Public Safety Secretariat. Also among the detainees was a former member of the Baja California ministerial police. Being held captive inside the house were two abducted members of a rival criminal gang, the statement said.

The operation took place following the arrests Monday in Baja California Sur of two suspects, Jose Manuel Garcia Simental and Raydel Lopez Uriarte. The two were identified as the leaders of a brutal drug gang that has been operating in the Tijuana area. Authorities say the group is responsible for numerous killings and kidnappings in the Tijuana region, and led a campaign to intimidate municipal police officers by gunning them down.

Since taking office more than two years ago, Mayor Ramos has led an unprecedented push to root out corruption the department, which had become heavily infiltrated by organized crime. More than 400 officers have been dropped from the force and more than 100 are behind bars, accused of collaborating with criminal groups. During his administration, 43 officers have been killed in the line of duty, according to municipal police figures.

Under Ramos, the city has forged close ties with the Mexican military, which has been spearheading the fight against organized crime in the region.

At a news conference in Tijuana yesterday, both the mayor and Baja California Gov. José Guadalupe Osuna Millan applauded the detentions. Ramos said Leyzaola participated in the arrests, and vowed to continue his administration’s efforts to remove corrupt officers.

“This will last throughout my administration,” Ramos said. “No one is exempt.”

Osuna said the detentions showed the close coordination of municipal, state and federal levels of government. They offered proof, he said, of “the unbending political will... to dismantle the criminal groups that were operating in our state.”